Spring Examples, clear/extensive enough?

[Marten Deinum]

I was answering some questions again and people are 'complaining' about the fact that Spring doesn't have an example of framework x, combined with framework Y and using Spring MVC in the front-end.

Now I'm wondering is it because of the nature of the documentation (lack of/unclear documentation) or the lack of samples for Spring? Or is it maybe the people who tend to think to complex or mis the obvious?

An example which comes up quite often (at least with the release of the new Spring MVC annotations) is the fact if interceptors (AOP) can be used with those. For me it is quite clear that the annotated controllers are plain POJO's which can be perfectly intercepted (maybe even better then the old interceptors) with combining/applying the Spring AOP chapter/part.

Another example is that I came around a couple of questions regarding Hibernate Search (full text search based on lucene if i'm not mistaken), people want examples...

So should we create some samples sub project which includes everything including the kitchen-sink or do we have to teach the spring basics better?

[dr_pompeii]

Hello Marten

about the fact that Spring doesn't have an example of framework x, combined with framework Y and using Spring MVC in the front-end.

is this a dutty of Spring?, IMHO,
Spring should show and teach how make a successful integration

for instance why the integration between spring and struts 1.X
is located in an IBM tutorial?, ilogic right?

other question, why the other framework dont make its own documentation about integration with spring, a pin pon of whom should make the documentation

i would agree about of the same situation for SWF and other frameworks

Now I'm wondering is it because of the nature of the documentation (lack of/unclear documentation) or the lack of samples for Spring? Or is it maybe the people who tend to think to complex or mis the obvious?

each one of us has differents skills to learn some topic

Alfa:
but in my opinion learn spring from the scratch from the classic documentation,
IMHO is not enough, is hard and very concise and maybe doesnt explain in more deep detail the reason of the things (i am telling this about of my experience 1 year ago)
about of the acutal documentation, i dont have read carefully yet

Beta:
about the samples code, i would say the same like Alfa:,
it obvious to say ReadTheManual first and then see the examples

Another example is that I came around a couple of questions regarding Hibernate Search (full text search based on lucene if i'm not mistaken), people want examples...

and what about of the integration with spring mvc/SWF integration with jasper reports?
same situation right?

So should we create some samples sub project which includes everything including the kitchen-sink or do we have to teach the spring basics better?

i would be agree,
the point would be
until which point the examples should be deeply explain it?

the new developers are lazy, dont want to make its own research
dont want to read some book almost 1 hr ?

regards

[pmularien]

the new developers are lazy, dont want to make its own research
dont want to read some book almost 1 hr ?

I think there's a lot of truth to this. Part of the problem that I see (at least in the Spring Web forum) is that a lot of new folks don't really understand the technologies involved in Spring, nor the technologies that they're integrating with. Therefore, even if there were a "cookbook" about integrating Spring and "X", without that conceptual understanding, people will be lost once they have to step outside the lines.

I do tend to agree with the newbies that there isn't a lot of good (free) documentation available of the "how do I get started?" variety - even within the Spring project itself. I think that Thomas and co-authors of the step-by-step tutorial did a great job, but there should be more content of this caliber in order to really lead people through the learning curve of Spring and what it's all about.

Since Spring is quite often a 'middleware' layer integrating numerous technologies, I think the web site could benefit from a redesign considering this fact. Imagine if you had links like "I want to use Spring with... [Struts, Hibernate, JPA, etc]" - it would be much more helpful for new folks.

If you see particular gaps in the documentation, I'd suggest filing JIRAs on them as enhancements.

[dr_pompeii]

I think the web site could benefit from a redesign considering this fact. Imagine if you had links like "I want to use Spring with... [Struts, Hibernate, JPA, etc]" - it would be much more helpful for new folks.

100% agree

[Marten Deinum]

Since Spring is quite often a 'middleware' layer integrating numerous technologies, I think the web site could benefit from a redesign considering this fact. Imagine if you had links like "I want to use Spring with... [Struts, Hibernate, JPA, etc]" - it would be much more helpful for new folks.

I'm in doubt with that, on one hand I like this issue, on the other hand the question arises on what do you include (the kitchen sink?!). Or do you simply explain/example the one given technology. I would opt for the latter, if you know how to use Hibernate, Tapestry you should be able yourself to combine the 2.

It is not realistic imho to expect the Spring Team to create samples for every possible imaginable configuration out there. Some use Hiberate/Spring MVC, OpenJPA/Spring MVC, Hibernate/Tapestry, add another component or 2 in the mix (Tomcat/JBoss/Weblogic, ActiveMQ/SoniqMQ) and you have a great number of possibilities.

Still I believe people should take a look at the samples and read (and search forum and use google) before asking questions. A lot of questions arise from (indeed) not understanding patterns/technologies or not reading the docs.

[gehel]

I'm quite new to Spring. I did my first Spring project about 2 and 1/2 years ago, but it was based on AndroMDA, so I didnt need to understand Spring all that much. I had a 1 year break and came back to it about 1 year ago.

The most difficult thing for me to understand was what is dependency injection and why it is useful. I might sound dumb (and I feel a bit dumb now that I think I understand what it is about). But just grasping the concepts is pretty hard, and I dont think they are easy to explain. At least for me, it took a few month of actually using them before I understood. And the real realization has come when I had to work on a project without Spring ... I finally realize what it was useful for.

So, I think that a good general introduction on what is DI, why it is useful would have been great to have. I will have a lot of respect for whoever write that piece, but I'm totally unable to even think about where to begin !